Lazar V. Charkov

Lazar Vadimovich Charkov (1927-2015) was a Spetsnaz commander during the Cold War.

Biography
Lazar Vadimovich Charkov was born in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now St. Petersburg, Russia) in 1927, and he served in the Red Army at the end of World War II in 1945. Charkov transferred to the Spetsnaz after the war's end, and he climbed the ranks of the secretive unit. Charkov was given command of a Soviet relay dish site, and he foiled the CIA's "Operation Tullahoma" in 1969. Charkov would remain a senior Spetsnaz officer until the end of the Cold War in 1991, upon which he retired. He died in 2015.